News
2015-09-23
LIFE Elia at final conference of BESTGRID
LIFE Elia team was invited to participate to the final conference of BESTGRID on September 23rd. The idea was that the LIFE project could illustrate how biodiversity and social acceptance can influence each other.
Morning sessions
First speeches were dedicated to the impacts of the regulatory framework on Projects of Common Interest, their current status and outlook. These projects are contributing to the European Grid and should be therefore considered as a whole in Europe. Solidarity funding can be activated in some cases if investments are made in a Member State in favor of the European Grid.
Among the subject discussed were the return on investment for local communities. Often, these communities have only the side effects of a new line, although economical benefits will enrich others external stakeholders. Social acceptance of new grids could be increased by some means, among them are those developed in the LIFE Elia project.
Specific projects of BESTGRID such as Stevin in Belgium or SuedLink in Germany were exposed.
A poster session gave us the opportunity to present the LIFE Elia project.
Roundtable
LIFE Elia was in charge of the round table that was addressing this issue : The relationship between biodiversity and social acceptance - how can one influence the other ? Discussions went through national examples of projects dealing with biodiversity. The following concepts were stressed out : social acceptance and biodiversity, cooperation between TSO and nature NGOs, local partnerships.
